Thoughts about life, the universe and everything.

WT&TT: Personality Affecting Writing Process? (reblogged)

A while ago, I took the Myers-Briggs test online. (We were taking a different set of comprehensive personality tests in my psych subject for analysis and I was doing a bit of background research on personality tests in general.)

I’m supposedly an ENFJ/ENFP…the difference between the J and P ‘scores’ wasn’t enough to distinguish one or the other, so I’m both. 😛 Make of that what you will…I suspect each of us has at least one characteristic like that.

The first thing I’d say about personality tests (esepecially online ones) is to always take them with a little grain of salt (at least) and remember that personality is changeable. We can have set basic tendencies, but life experiences and whatnot shape actual personality. As well as how good one feels about themselves on the day of taking the test.

Anyway…they’re good for a general overview of potential strengths/ weaknesses. Looking at another blogger’s ideas for ENFP and ENFJ authors is quite amusing, as I can see myself in the descriptions.

Also, the tests are good for character development. It’s interesting to think about. Once I finish doing their ‘F Words’ (which is throwing up backstory surprises of its own), I’m taking the test ‘as’ them. (I’ve got the big list out and everything.) This puts things into perspective.

As a total Potter nerd, I also found this blog post, if you’re so inclined, matching Hogwarts House qualities with Myers-Briggs ones. The blogger makes some good assessments, including a breakdown of primary and secondary traits (leading to Houses) which may also prove useful for analysing your characters.

I’ve been slacking a bit on the writing tips because I’ve been reading a lot of the same things lately. A lot of rehashed content or stuff I’ve already posted about. And I’ve been working on other Internet-y things. But after finally getting around to reading some of the posts I’d saved in my Inbox, [tag]Jami Gold[/tag]’s answer to the question Does Our Personality Affect Our Writing Process? intrigued me enough to finally post this month.

Have you ever taken the Myers-Briggs personality test? I remember doing so at the last long-term job I had. The 7 people in our department took it and the third party consultant who administered it came in and explained everything. It was truly enlightening and it made sense why my manager and I got along so well. We were very similar.

According to Jami, this test can provide a better understanding of how our personality traits might help us develop a writing process that works for us. One suggestion of Jami’s that I may take into consideration at some point, if I feel the need to delve deeper into my characters, is to take this test from a character’s POV to create a story arc.